DOSTOYEVSKY’S BOOTS: ARTISTIC DETAIL IN THE WRITER’S ONTOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.18384/2310-7278-2022-5-49-58
Abstract
Aim. We study the objective world of F. M. Dostoevsky’s prose from the point of view of the writer’s artistic ontology. Boots as a detail of the hero’s costume are considered in the context of the systemic organization of the work, taking into account different, hierarchically correlated planes of the image, such as socio-cultural, psychological, ideological-philosophical, and metaphysical. The proposed approach allows one to broaden our understanding of the significance of an artistic detail both for characterization of a character and for building a worldview of a text.
Methodology. A typology of the mentions of the artistic detail in question is proposed. Boots are analyzed as a point of intersection of external and internal, as well as of objective and subjective planes of characterization of both the hero and the world, in interaction with which the character represents himself. We study the novels “Poor People” and “Demons”, which open and complete Dostoevsky’s appeal to subject matter in a dialogue with the aesthetics of the “natural school”. This makes it possible to trace the evolution of one of the most important artistic principles of Dostoevsky’s prose—the change in the ‘optics’ of the narrative and the transition from the external to the internal, i.e. emotionally, ideologically, and ontologically oriented existence of a detail in the artistic world of the writer.
Results. The features of the phenomenological image of the detail in the works of Dostoevsky and the specifics of playing with the image in various artistic contexts are revealed; a question is raised about the meaning of the ‘metatext’ plot of creativity at various levels of the work, including for revealing the specifics of the artistic detail in all the potential variety of its meanings.
Research implications. A new approach is suggested to the artistic detail in Dostoevsky’s prose, taking into account its multi-level structure and metatextual potential.
About the Author
T. A. Alpatova
Moscow Region State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Tatiana A. Alpatova – Dr. Sci. (Philology), Аssoc. Prof., Department of Russian Classical Literature
Very Voloshinoi 24, Mytishchi 141014, Moscow Region
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